GEN News Highlights

The French National Institute of Health and Medical Research (Inserm) is teaming up with in vitro diagnostics firm Sebia to develop a biological assay that can both diagnose and indicate the severity of beta thalassemia. The test is based on quantifying free alpha globin chains in patients’ blood, an approach developed by Inserm researchers working with a team at the genetic disease unit at the Henri-Mondor-Chenevier Hospital.

Sebia will support research carried out by Inserm, which will continue to develop the test. Sebia will in return have the potential to acquire exclusive rights to commercialize the test internationally. “This test provides an immediate indication of the severity of the disease, since the results can be available within a day, whereas it took a week with the old methods,” comments Kamran Moradkhani, associate practitioner at Henri-Mondor-Chenevier Hospital. “It ensures that diagnosis is oriented toward identifying the different mutations at work and gives us highly relevant indicators for comparing different groups of patients.”

Initial validation of the test has already been carried out, and a further trial will be carried out in 2013.

Jobs

GEN Jobs powered by HireLifeScience.com connects you directly to employers in pharma, biotech, and the life sciences. View 40 to 50 fresh job postings daily or search for employment opportunities including those in R&D, clinical research, QA/QC, biomanufacturing, and regulatory affairs.

If you have any questions about your subscription, click
hereto email us or call at (914) 740-2189.

You may also be interested in subscribing to the GEN magazine, an indispensable
resource for everyone involved in the business of translating discoveries at the
bench into solutions that fight disease and improve health, agriculture, and the
environment. Subscribe
today to see why over 60,000 biotech professionals read GEN to
keep current in the areas of genomics, proteomics, drug discovery, biomarker discovery,
bioprocessing, molecular diagnostics, collaborations, biotech business trends, and
more.